


Deception

by afra_schatz



Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afra_schatz/pseuds/afra_schatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People are deceitful, and they like believing in deceptions. It’s just how the world is. Sean figures it doesn’t make him cynical to say this, considering it is true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noalinnea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noalinnea/gifts).



> This was written on the occasion of the 2014 fic exchange for who asked for this: “I'd like to read about an intimate moment, preferably emotional (huge fan of man tears) and non-smutty. I enjoy NZ-timed fic as well as established relationship fic. No AUs please!“ – I hope you like this, darling!

People are deceitful, and they like believing in deceptions. It’s just how the world is. Sean figures it doesn’t make him cynical to say this, considering it is true.

Take the overall perception of Viggo that the general population has agreed on is the truth. Viggo is famous for being a true artist, so in touch with himself, a renaissance man (whatever that is supposed to entail), crazy, a hippie, a horse whisperer, method, the eternal optimist, a dreamer. If ‘people’ were to be believed, Viggo would be the living embodiment of an Alanis Morissette song, and not even that is an original or particularly clever summary.

Viggo doesn’t _mind_ being all that in the eyes of the world, in fact he actively caters to it. And Sean can’t blame him. It does take effort to build a stage-persona, as it were, and as they go, Viggo’s public alter ego is a very well-crafted, very handy one. Much better than what Sean accidentally scraped together and turned into this collage of himself that shows as much handiwork as Evie’s fridge artwork from her potty training years. It is much more convenient to be considered crazy and artistic than reclusive, awkward and shy, and Sean’s not even touching the ‘bloke’s bloke’ bit again in fear of making himself sick to the stomach.

Now, he isn’t saying that Viggo _isn’t_ an artist. Of course, in today’s world, it is hard to say what defines art to begin with, but Sean, well, he feels things when he looks at Viggo’s paintings. Granted, sometimes it’s just anger because the idiot once again spilled paint onto the carpet; but sometimes they are different feelings, and Viggo’s disfigured splotches touch something more basic within him. 

Viggo does walk around without shoes occasionally, sings to his horse and wears t-shirts he painted himself for film openings. If that’s what makes a hippie and a rebel, then Sean figures he won’t dispute that the general public isn’t wrong about that either. Viggo also loves red meat, is a stickler for monogamy (much more than Sean is or could ever aspire to be) and hates folk-music. 

Viggo isn’t lock-him-away-in-an-asylum-crazy maybe, not the kind of crazy that makes people come after you with a knife for no good reason. In fact, Viggo _isn’t_ crazy at all. He is an opportunistic bastard who likes operating under the cloak, generously provided by that public label, because it gets him out of handing in his costumes at the end of the day or taking out the trash (because, heaven forbid, he might start making art out of empty yoghurt pots in the middle of the driveway). But then again, maybe that is just Sean’s envy talking. After all, _he_ can’t even get his mail with a pint in his hand without the _Daily Mirror_ calling him a raging alcoholic.

Sean’s envy doesn’t go beyond that, though. Yes, the roles Viggo gets offered are more versatile than the stuff Sean gets to choose from, but Sean actually does prefer lugging around rocket launchers to growing strange facial hair and pretending to be the founding father of psychology. As long as people don’t throw eggs at his head, he is fine with allegedly being awkward, shy and apparently casually insensitive. Someone has to play that role; might as well be him.

What he does mind is when _Viggo_ forgets that he is sharing a house with Sean and not with ‘Sean’, the bloke that the _Sharpe_ francize, _Lady Chatterley_ and Fleet Street created. 

What Sean minds even more is Viggo trying to use that against him.

_It just seemed like you were in over your head. I mean, you always have trouble adjusting to new stuff -_

_Maybe I’ll try your approach next, sensitivity and treading lightly. Oh wait -_

_If you’d just told me that this was how you were feeling -_

Again, Sean is not bitter. If he were, he’d be asking why – in late night arguments that have gone on for hours and have by then turned into a self-contained, autopoietic circle of hell – it is never worth mentioning that he, too, is an artist, is a way better dancer than Viggo is or has actually raised three daughters that are far less mal-adjusted than anyone ever gives him credit for. 

But between the two of them, it’s _Sean_ who has been married four times. Yes, and divorced, too, but what this really means is that four times he picked himself up after love-gone-bad and actually found the fucking courage to believe in love again and again and again and again. 

And again. 

How is _he_ awkward and cagey and too much of a bloke for romantic notions, when it is _Viggo_ who stares at him like Sean just put a gun to his chest? Viggo who doesn’t smile and say ‘yes, yes, of course I will’, but who just turns white and looks scared and like he is going to throw up? Viggo who clutches to the smallest of details to pick a fight, just so he doesn’t have to accept Sean’s proposal _or_ turn him down?

In the eyes of the public, ‘Viggo’ is a true artist, a dreamer, the eternal optimist. It’s an image conveniently larger-than-life, so Viggo doesn’t even have to duck to hide behind it.

In their living room, Sean peels that image away bit by bit, nails digging in to scrape every piece of it off like illegal posters on a council estate, and then he pushes Viggo against the wall. He says –

You’re an escapist. 

You’re terrified of being normal.

You’re a fucking coward, Viggo.

What Sean sees in his eyes (not tears, never tears, because Viggo doesn’t cry. It is something that Sean does, when he is alone, sometimes) – What Sean sees in Viggo’s eyes, he sees in Viggo’s art. And he says –

And I still love you.

I love you despite of it.

I love you because of it.

Whichever makes it easier for you.

Viggo still stares at him, and the wetness in his eyes is there because he refuses to blink. As if that could make Sean disappear somehow. And Sean doesn’t say –

You’re an idiot.

I don’t even know why I bother.

You’re – fuck, Viggo.

I wish I knew how to be callous and uncaring.

Instead, he lets go of Viggo’s shirtfront, straightens it with hands that aren’t trembling. Viggo still doesn’t move, and Sean leans forward, leans his forehead against Viggo’s just so. And he says,

I love you, I love you. 

Again and again and again and again –

and again.


End file.
